By Kari Lydersen
Charlie Williams has been at the car wash since 1963, when he came to Chicago “following a lady.” He says, “It’s the only job I’ve had since I left the farm,” which was in Greenwood, Mississippi. “Earl was just a kid when I started working here. And there are customers who have been coming here as long as I’ve been here.”
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Smith relented. She asked Weiss and Sheinfeld to come up with an architectural plan addressing community concerns, with the final decision to be based on the reactions to it. Sheinfeld has produced a plan by Greene & Proppe Design, and next Monday Smith will meet with representatives of the Argyle, Magnolia, Glenwood Block Club and the Uptown Chicago Commission to discuss it. On August 10 the UCC had voted 10-2 to support the block club’s “library expansion” plan.
But Chicago Public Library officials haven’t asked for a bigger Bezazian branch. “Our capital improvement plan is set through 2001 and this is not in it,” says director of communications Lois Berger. “We have no plans for expansion. This really has nothing to do with us. Mary Ann Smith wants that car wash gone.”
The problems include cars lined up to be washed that block traffic and dirty water that runs onto the sidewalk. A 1996 city investigation found that the car wash met all environmental regulations, and Weiss says the traffic problem was aggravated by a traffic light when it was installed at Broadway and Ainslie three years ago and by tour buses that used to park in front of the business.
As he’s talking, a van pulls up and the man inside throws a beer bottle into the gutter across the street. “If Rae Mindock was here she would blame me for that,” says Weiss.
The Organization of the NorthEast (ONE), which has opposed the Uptown Chicago Commission on other issues, supports the car wash. “They employ a lot of people,” says executive director Sarah Jane Knoy. “It’s clearly an incredibly successful business and they’ve been really working to meet everything the community wants. What matters more–a successful business that employs a lot of people or the way a community looks when you drive by?”
